NCIS: The Trip
by Dan Bivens
Summary: An unknown terrorist has just introduced an hallucinogenic compound into the air conditioning system at NCIS, and it would lead each of the team into a "trip" that might leave their minds broken.
1. Chapter 1

It was the start of a new day at the Norfolk, Virginia offices of the **N**aval **C**riminal **I**nvestigative **S**ervice. It would also be the start of a very private Hell for those occupying those offices.

A gas mask-wearing individual had sneaked into the air conditioning control section, far below the occupied offices of NCIS, carrying a fairly high-tech vaporizor device. One laden with a large quantitity of dimethyltryptamine, DMT, which the also glove-wearing individual placed where it would be sucked into the air conditioning system, so as to do its worst with everyone in the multi-floor building.

Then, leaving as stealthily as he had entered, the gas-masked, gloved individual would head back to his car, situated well within the attached parking garage. Only then to remove his gas mask and gloves. Revealing a face not to be seen by anyone connected with NCIS.

Meanwhile, the first to feel the effects of the vaporized DMT would be the two individuals most associated with the medical examiner functions, involving dead bodies discovered in and around Norfolk, Virginia and the Washington, D.C. areas: Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard and the Assistant to the Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer.

"Turning out to be a slow day, Doctor," said Palmer, as he nervously adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, whilst observing Ducky with a body that did not die from a mysterious malady or in a felonious fashion.

"That all depends upon how you look at things, Mr. Palmer," Ducky stated quite succintly, even as he began using a traditional scaple to cut a Y-incision into the torso of a male Marine that had died in a car crash. "I prefer to look at it as a brief respite in the criminal actions of madmen hellbent upon reaking havoc with those enlisted men and women simply doing their jobs in either the Marines or in the Navy. One in which we should all pray to God doesn't involve our services anytime soon. As fascinating as it is to use our forensic abilities to get to the heart of Truth, when our slabs are heavily laden with murder victims, instead of accidental death individuals, such as as this Marine laying before us. You must view all things in a postive light."

"You mean," summed up Palmer in somewhat anxious fashion, "we need to be satisfied with being busy with accidental deaths instead of longing for the more emotionally-charged times when we're up to our elbows in murdered persons."

"Precisely, Mr. Palmer, now if you will give me a hand here-"

Ducky stopped short of using the red-handled rib-cutting utensil, in order to more readily expose the organ-laden torso of the dead Marine lying between himself and Palmer.

Sniffing the re-circulated air in the morgue area, Ducky rhetorically asked, "What is that smell? It's as if someone were burning plastic nearby. Very strange."

"Yeah," Palmer replied, also sniffing the re-circulated air, like a non-Alpha bloodhound wearing glasses. "It does smell like plastic burning. I wonder..."

Before Palmer could complete his thought, both he and Ducky fall under the hallucinogenic spell of vaporizor-spewing DMT.

Which meant, for Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard, that his mind would be wrenched out of the here-and-now, and sent spinning back to his time as a medical examiner in Vietnam, at the height of that long, drawn-out war.

"Oh, no..."

Ducky soon found himself, at least within the confines of his "tripping" brain, rapidly cutting into young GIs being sent to his Red Cross tent from the front. Young soldiers, Marines included, whom had been killed horribly by the Viet Cong.

Ducky cringed as he cut into one, then another, and another of these poor boys caught in hopeless firefights for one supposedly important "hill" after the other.

"No," Ducky said again, in a breathed voice that could only be heard by his own ears. "Not again."

Ducky felt as though he would vomit, but, somehow, he kept it down, albeit tasting bile burning the back of his throat.

Hearing, and feeling to some extint, the explosions occuring not as far away as Ducky would've liked, as the war raged all around the tented rear war zone region of Vietnam.

"I can't take this," murmured a profusely sweating, even to the extint that large droplets of swear rolled down his also wire-rimmed glasses. "I can't go through this again. Not again. Please, God...not again!"

Assistant to the Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer's "bad trip" merely took him back to his early days in college, even before he took Pre-Med, wherein the older frat boys would make sport of him, because his highly intelligent mind had made him a freshman in college far faster than the others.

"Leave me alone," Palmer panted, as sweat coated his face, and rolled down his glasses, in a similar manner as it was happening to Ducky. "Just leave me the hell alone!"

It was a prime example of how "personal Hell" was in the mind's eye of the beholder.

A personal Hell that would also soon be shared by the rest of the NCIS team...


	2. Chapter 2

The virtual nerve center of NCIS was not buzzing with criminal investigative activity. It was a collection of investigators whom were awash in boredom. Of course, that didn't mean that they weren't involved in activities whose intent was to alleviate said boredom.

Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo was basically surfing the internet via his desktop computer, looking for examples of erotic beauties designed to put a lecherous smile on his otherwise bored, albeit handsome, face.

"Oh, yeah," he said just loud enough to be heard by his colleagues: Ziva David, the lovely black-haired beauty who was still attempting to fit into this collection of naval investigators; Timothy McGee, the computer whiz who still struggled to prove himself in the eyes and mind of Tony, who still persisted in calling him "Probie".

"We're not listening to you," McGee said soundly, as he, himself, was using his computer to play violent RPG games easily, for him, located upon the self-same internet being used for lecherous reasons by Tony.

"That's your lose, Probie," replied Tony, even as his screen came alive with beautiful bikini-clad ladies, causing him to virtually drool with delight. "I've never seen such sexy swimwear since the last time my old frat buddies and I went on Spring Break."

"Aren't you worried," sighed Ziva, even as she continued playing Solitare on her computer, lamenting, on the inside, the fact that there simply was not any source of investigative necessity for which she, and the others, could concentrate, "that Gibbs might see what you're using your goverment-issued computer is being used for?"

"I would be, if it weren't for the fact that the Old Man is out chasing down another Starbuck's extra-large black coffee. Ooo, baby, look at your. Mm."

So entranced with what he was seeing on his computer screen, in the way of scantily clad women going from skimpy bikinis to almost see-through nigligees, Tony was completely unaware that Leroy Jethro Gibbs had just entered, walking around the rear of Tony's workspace, large Starbuck's coffee in hand, and spied the sexually explicit sites for which his computer was being used, during this down time, in regards to criminal activities.

Gibbs did what he had done dozens of times before, whenever Tony as behaving inappropriately for such a professional place. He smacked him on the back of the head.

"Ouch," Tony said suddenly, even as he quickly closed all the sexy sites through which he had been surfing. "Sorry, boss. Just trying to keep from falling asleep here. You wouldn't by any chance be coming back with a murder to try and solve would you?"

"Sorry," responded, coolly, Gibbs, even as he walked around his desk to sit and sip his beloved coffee in a modicum of peace and quiet. "The only corpse that Ducky's working on is the one that was involved in an accidental car crash. He's checking it out, just to ascertain whether or not the Marine-in-question had been drinking or doing drugs that led to the car crash."

"Hence the reason," cut in Tony, with more than a little sarcasm to his tone, "for scanning chicks in sexy attire, boss. To keep from dozing off over here. I know how much you hate that."

"Just do something on your computer that doesn't involve slobbering over nearly naked women, DiNozzo," loudly ordered Gibbs in between sips of his large cup of black coffee. Which seemed a trifle wasted, since he wasn't on top of a criminal murder of a sailor or a Marine that would require him being one hundred percent awake and aware.

"Okay, boss," Tony heavily heaved, as boredom threatened to break his will. "Maybe I can stream an old movie. Maybe a classic like _Casablanca_. 'Here's lookin' at you, kid.' Just as soon as I find my headphones...ah, here they are."

"Just don't fall asleep, DiNozzo," Gibbs said slyly. "You wouldn't like my response to-"

"What's that, boss?"

Gibbs begins sniffing the re-circulated air, his brow knitting in puzzlement, "What's that smell? Plastic burning?"

Suddenly the other three individuals making up NCIS were aware of this unusually pungent sent...

"Yeah, boss," Tony said, as he lay down his headphones upon his desk. "I smell it, too."

"Me, too," said Siva suspiciously, in regards to what could be causing such a slight-but-definitely present stench.

"Where's it coming from?" rhetorically asked McGee, even as he continued loudly, more so than the others, sniffing the air in the climate-controlled offices of NCIS. "Think something's on fire somewhere in the building?"

That last question, not at all rhetorical, garnered a response from Gibbs, as he reached for his phone, intent upon alerting firefighters, before a fire, if that was what it was, could get out of control, "I'll call it in, then we're all out of he-. What's happening now?"

At the self-same moment that the DMT began affecting Gibbs, Tony, Siva, and McGee were all as affected by the hallucinogenic compound as was Gibbs.

Speaking of whom, his psychedelic experience would lull him into a hellish reliving of the point in time when Jenny Shepard, someone to whom he was romantically attached, was killed during an investigation.

"Jenny..."

Someone whom was, in his hallucinating state, suddenly back to life, but in a manner meant to torment rather than fill him with a surge of resurrected affections for the lady with the short-cut reddish hair...

"No, Jenny," murmured Gibbs, even as the woman whom, in his DMT-twisted mind, had become a wraith, rather than a loving ghost, come back from the grave to offer him a chance at affection one last time. "I couldn't help you. I know that. But it wasn't as if I had, somehow, been directly responsible for your death."

"That's where you're wrong, Jethro," the spiteful spirit of Jenny snarled, as she stood close to Gibbs. "You were supposed to keep me safe. As you do for your team, whenever you all are investigating a criminal murder. But you didn't...did you?"

"Jenny," painfully breathed Gibbs, as tears welled up in his eyes. "If I could do it all over again...I would've given my life to save yours. Surely you can see that?"

"I'm unable to 'see' anything anymore, Jethro," Jenny's wraith-like ghost said with more than a little harshly, and accusatory. "I'm in the ground, aren't I, Jethro. In the ground where you put me after my murder. And now, as you continue to live and breath, I shall rip out your own soul and bring it into the ground with me!"

"No, Jenny, nooooo-!"


	3. Chapter 3

Whilst Leroy Jethro Gibbs was being assaulted by his own version of Hell, in the same manner as was happening to both Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard and Jimmy Palmer, such was also occuring with Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo...

"What the hell's going on?" pleaded Tony, as his field of view was being filled to capacity by nearly naked young women parading around in skimpy bikinis as well as a variety of lingerie. "Where the hell am I?"

As the shock of such a sudden change in location, even though said location was still a mystery, because of the fact it was devoid of any sort of solidified background. Instead, providing a pure white set of surroundings offering up a seamless backdrop through which said scantily clad ladies could move.

Which now, again as the shock of such wore off, provided a reason for Tony to smile, as he oogled the ladies swarming about him.

"Hello," he would say in a manner meant only for calling attention to himself in a sexual fashion, all for the benefit of the beauties abounding about him. "The name's DiNozzo. Anthony DiNozzo. You can call me Tony. What are some of your names? Hello. Can you hear me? Hello!"

In Tony's private little Hell, he is surrounded by lovely ladies in all manner of undress, yet he can't get a single one of them to so much as return his greeting, let alone allow him the luxury of making love to even one, let alone several.

"This can't be happening," Tony stated to himself. "They can't hear me. They can't see me. And something tells me I won't be able to touch them. No. Nooooo-!"

Now it was Timothy McGee's turn to be sucked into a private Hell of his own: In particular, sucked, literally, into his computer system via his fingers, which were practically glued to his keyboard...

"Ahhhhh!" he screamed, as he soon found himself in the very same RPG computer game in which he had been engaged during this down time from criminal investigations. "What the hell?"

He felt himself standing, as much as such could be "felt" whilst inside a true computer game, near a pixelated wall with an equally pixelated automatic weapon in his hands. Even as, at the self-same moment, computerized bullets were being fired in his general direction. Ricocheting off his pixelated wall and floor.

"Oh, Jesus," he heaved heavily to himself, even as he waited for the perfect moment to swing his gun around the wall's corner, in order to return automatic gunfire. "Can't screw this up, or else I'm as dead as can be in an RPG game. One...two..."

In a brief break in the enemy's hail of virtual bullets, McGee stepped from behind the pseudo-protection of his wall, and opened fire with his own hail of computerized bullets.

"Yeah!"

Having killed two heavily pixelated, although nondescript, enemy soldiers, each using a weapon akin to what he held in his computerized hands...

"Come on, you faceless bastards!" he yelled, even as he narrowly missed being killed, or as "killed" as he could be whilst deep inside a computer program, as other enemy soldiers returned fire with their own pixelated bullets from pixelated machine guns. "Oh, shit..."

Suddenly, McGee found himself pinned down by an illogical number of rapidly-fired bullets that seemed to chip away at his wall, which would soon leave him exposed and easily killed by the enemy. Faceless and nameless as they were.

"I give up, Goddammit, I give up!" he shouted against the din of automatic gunfire, which seemed to reach an unreasonable sound meant to purposely drown out McGee's shouting voice. "Stop! Stop! I give up! Ahhhh!"

As McGee's personal Hell continued unabated, whereas he was armed equally as well as the enemy soldiers in his game, although he was unable to get off any shots of his own...

Ziva David would be next to be hurled headlong into a Hell of her own making. Partly from memory, partly from subconscious fear that lay dorment within her brain.

"No," she shakily said to no one in particular. "Noooo!"

She was once again a member of the Mossad. Once again having been captured by terrorist whom were ready to torture her again. Would Gibbs, Tony, and McGee rescue her this time?


	4. Chapter 4

Ziva found herself strapped to a chair, which may not have been exactly as remembered, but enough for this hallucinogenic torture to commence.

"I will never tell you anything," she hissed in Israeli through tightly clenched teeth, as a faceless person in garb reminiscent of that worn by the terrorist whom had captured her in reality.

Without a word, the faceless individual commenced to torture her in a variety of ways. Some remembered, but most of which was new to Ziva...

"Gyiiiii!" she screamed, as her hands were placed in press clamps, with which the unknown terrorist tightened them in order to cause the pain for which Ziva was screaming.

Next came the hot irons pressed against exposed skin that sizzled in line with more screams of agony issuing forth from Ziva David.

"I will still never talk!" she shouted, again in Israeli, to her tormentor. "Never!"

This time, however, Ziva was expecting Gibbs, Tony, and McGee to rush in, guns drawn, in order to rescue her. They never came. And her torture continued.

"Gyiiiiii!"

In the forensics floor of the NCIS offices, Abigail "Abby" Sciuto was inhaling the DMT via the air conditioning ducts running throughout the building. At first woozy, Abby would soon find herself falling into a subconscious Hell of her own...

"What...?" she gasped as she looked into a full length mirror that magically, it seemed, appeared to one side of forensics. "No. No!"

What greeted her usually darkly adorned eyes was, for her, the worst sight she could've seen: Her hair was blonde, not jet-black, her tatoos were gone, and her manner of dress was akin to someone definitely not into Goth.

She was a living Barbie doll.

"Gibbs!" she shouted, in hopes that the strong leader of the NCIS group, which included her, would come bursting in and smash the mirror to tiny reflective pieces. But Gibbs was still caught up in his own Hell at the moment. Which left Abby trapped in her Barbie doll existence. Forced to stare at herself in the "magical" mirror, as well as look down to confirm what the reflection held for truth.

"Yuk!" she gutterally grunted, as her fingernails, devoid of Goth nail paint, were matching, in color, the bright green dress she wore without any of the spiked trappings usually strapped around neck, wrist, and even finger.

She felt herself getting violently ill. Her stomach twisting and turning, threatening to allow vomit to hurl forth, quite possibly onto the mirror, which continually reminded Abby of the horror that had befallen her.

A Barbie doll existence.

As Abby held back the vomit...

As Ziva held out through her torture...

As McGee held his own in the RPG game within the confines of his computer...

As Tony held his head high, even though not a single one of the scantily clad ladies surrounding him took notice of his panting presence...

As Gibbs held back his tears and broken heart, whilst Jenny Shepard stands just out of arms length, reminding him of her death, which stole her forever from his world...

As Palmer held his childhood trauma deep within, even as his college tormentors continued to harrass him...

And, last but most certainly not least, as Ducky continued to perform his medical examiner duties in wartorn Vietnam, the explosions outside the tent seemingly getting closer and closer...

The individual, once more wearing a gas mask and gloves, returned to remove the vaporizor device spewing DMT fumes throughout NCIS. He knew that, should he leave it behind, NCIS forensics could quite possibly trace it back to him.

And that was something he most definitely did not want to happen.

At last, everyone affected by the DMT were released from its hallucinigenic grasp. Their minds once again returning to the normal here-and-now.

Although, on some level, they would never fully recover from their personal Hells, they had recovered enough to realize some drug had been released into their re-circulated air.

"Everyone all right?" asked Gibbs, even as he stood and retrieved his holstered automatic pistol from one of the drawers of his desk.

"Yeah, boss," was Tony's groggy response, as he, too, stood and retrieved his own weapon from a desk drawer.

"I'm okay," responded Siva, as she did the same as Gibbs and Tony. "I think."

McGee was the last to stand, retrieve his gun, and answer...

"I'm all right now, boss."

Even as they all headed for the elevator...

Abby would once again see herself, in the reflective surfaces of some of her equipment and her computer screen, as the beauteous Goth that she was.

"Thank, God."

And both Ducky and Palmer also found themselves in the morgue floor of NCIS...

"That was interesting," understated, on purpose, Ducky as Vietnam was, once more, a thing of the past.

"I don't think 'interesting' is the word I would use, Dr. Mallard," commented Palmer, as he took stock of the true world over the hellish recollections that had so twisted his thoughts and emotions mere moments earlier.

Before the gas masked individual could make good his exit...

"Going somewhere?"

Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Ziva were just inside the air conditioning section situated so far below them, guns drawn and aimed directly at the person responsible for all that had occured.

Needless to say, the terrorist person, still in gas mask and gloves, one gloved hand holding the DMT vaporizor, held up said hands in surrender.

"Damn."


End file.
